Basic Law: Israel Lands חוק יסוד: מקרקעי ישראל
Enshrines the Zionist principle that the Land of Israel belongs to the Jewish people in perpetuity by locking the ownership of 'Israel Lands', roughly 93% of the country's land area, held by the State (about 69%), the Development Authority (about 12%), or the Jewish National Fund (about 12%), into permanent national hands and forbidding their sale. Land may be leased (typically for 49 or 98 years, renewable) but is not transferred out of national ownership.
הוראות מרכזיות
- Ownership of Israel Lands may not be transferred by sale or any other means
- Applies to land owned by the State, the Development Authority, and the Jewish National Fund
- Permits transfers among those three entities
- Allows the Knesset to define exceptional categories of land or transactions by separate statute
רקע
Passed by the Knesset on 25 July 1960 alongside the Israel Lands Law and the Israel Lands Administration Law as a package codifying a foundational Zionist commitment, inherited from the Jewish National Fund's pre-state tradition of redeeming land for the Jewish people, that the Land of Israel is the inalienable patrimony of the nation. The package created the Israel Lands Administration (renamed the Israel Land Authority in 2009), which administers the long-term leasing system to this day.
תיקונים בולטים
- 2009: Land Reform amendment authorized limited privatization of urban residential plots, granting full freehold to long-term lessees, enabling land swaps with the JNF, and replacing the Israel Land Administration with the Israel Land Authority, a market-oriented reform that streamlined housing for Israeli families while preserving the law's core principle of national ownership over the vast majority of land
כיום
The 2009 reform continues to be implemented gradually through the Israel Land Authority, with periodic proposals to expand privatization debated as a response to Israel's housing pressures. The JNF, fulfilling its century-old charitable mandate to hold land in trust for the Jewish people, continues to coordinate with the Authority on land management.
למה זה חשוב
Underpins Israel's distinctive land regime, in which the great majority of Israelis hold long-term, renewable leases from the state rather than freehold title, an arrangement rooted in the Zionist conviction that the Land of Israel is the inalienable inheritance of the Jewish people, with major consequences for housing, planning, and national policy.
ציטוט הדף הזה
Basic Law: Israel Lands (1960). מדינת ישראל. https://thestateofisrael.com/he/basic-law/israel-lands